RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Grimm’ Rises, ‘The Finder’ & ‘Fringe’ Fall
These are ratings that don’t need a comment, just a moment of silence. In its second week on Friday, Fox’s The Finder (0.9/3 in adults 18-49) fell 18% from its underwhelming premiere on the night last week to a new series low. Its rating was matched by Fringe (0.9/3), which was down a tenth to match its series low. Fox finished fifth for the night in 18-49 behind ABC and CBS, which were tied for first with a 1.5/5, Univision (1.4/5) and NBC (1.2/4).
NBC’s Grimm showed yet again that it does well when airing uninterrupted. For a second consecutive week since coming back with originals 3 weeks ago, the dark fairytale procedural (1.6/5) went up, jumping 23% from last Friday. Grimm was helped by CBS’ airing a Lionel Ritchie music special against it instead of CSI: NY. It was a Lionel Ritchie-themed night last night. It started on NBC, which rebroadcast the Ritchie episode of Who Do You Think You Are from last season to a 0.9/3, which was actually up a tenth from the series’ originals the last two weeks, underscoring how dependent on the profiled celebrity the docu series is. Then from 9-11 PM, it was CBS’ turn with the ACM Presents: Lionel Ritchie & Friends special which logged a 1.4/4.
CBS’ Undercover Boss (1.7/6) at 8 PM was down a tenth from last week but still ranked as the top program of the night in 18-49. After a long hiatus, a new Shark Tank (1.6/6) was up a tenth from the ABC reality series’ last original on March 23. The night’s 3 newsmagazines were within a tenth of their results last week, the CW aired repeats.
Im watching fringe on DVR today… Commerials and all. Hoping for a short season next year to wrap all the multi universe multi character stuff up.
Like I said, “Fringe needs to be moved from Friday slot.” Wake up FOX. You need to outsmart yourselves.
Why on earth would Fox move Fringe to another night?
Fringe fans should be glad it airs on Friday. That is the only thing that may allow it to get a short fifth season.
The only place Fox is moving Fringe is off the fall schedule. It’s ratings sucked during the week…and now on Fridays.
I still think Fringe gets renewed. Fox is losing too many shows this season, with The Finder and Alcatraz most likely on the way out.
Yeah, it’s a mystery to me, too. Fox has so few pilots, they’ll have to greenlight ALL of them. When was the last time that happened? What are the odds they’re all worth going with? They simply don’t have enough in the pipeline…but they should have realized Fringe was on its last legs months ago, when they were greenlighting pilots…so maybe they’ve always planned to keep it, if Warners will lower its fee?
Would Fringe please die already. Hardly anyone likes the show. The numbers stink.
I used to watch Fringe during its first run on Friday nights. However, I missed one week and now because of FOX’s new online streaming rule (where you must wait 8 days before it becomes available online unless you’re a DISH Network subscriber) I am forced to watch episodes one week late. I don’t think that this a great business model for calculating ratings. I have watched this show from episode 1 and now cannot catch up to watch on Friday nights.
And Fringe gets a good deal of DVR playback. Also, it’s so close to the magic syndication number of 100, so it’s more than likely that it’ll get picked up for an shorter fifth and final season (probably 12-15 episodes).
I think Fringe will get a 13 episode or less renewal. It is a JJ show. I think Alcatraz is a goner.
I’d be far more surprised to see Alcatraz return than Fringe.
Call me crazy, I enjoyed Alcatraz and I hope it comes back. The 1960s scenes were great and now that the story is coming together in the present I’d like to see what happens next. The warden is a great character too.
Fringe is suffering from LOST-itis this year, unable to wrap things up in a sensible way. We’ve spent all year with characters who are not the ones we’ve been watching for the 3 previous years. They should either wrap it up this season or come back in January for 8-10 episodes (or whatever gets them to 100).
Looks like both shows on FOX Fridays will be history in a few weeks time, so enjoy them while they’re still airing.